Let's not say that it's fun to talk about drowning children, but reading Scott Alexander reason his way through the philosophical experiment is fun. More Drowning Children.
TracingWoodgrains draws off a now-deleted essay by Jaibot which talks about the “Copenhagen interpretation of ethics”. It argues that by “touching” a situation - a vague term having something to do with causal entanglement - you gain moral obligation for it. If you can simply avoid touching it, your moral obligation goes away.
I think this explains half the problem, but I can think of another half that it doesn’t explain. Consider:
The problem is based on the The Drowning Child thought experiment of Peter Singer.
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It occurs to me that I have a new pattern of finding articles that look interesting or provoking, including a teaser quote, and making a short observation of my own about it. When I am back on the news (unless I follow CS Lewis and abandon it for good), I may go back to doing less of it. I also don't think I can go the next step to the Maggie's Farm form of linking to ten stories a day with almost no commentary. But it feels comfortable for now.
1 comment:
CERT training hits on many of the same themes- if you don’t keep yourself safe, you risk the larger effort and also increase likelihood someone else has to rescue you.
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